How To Survive A Zombie Apocalypse

If video-games are to be believed, a zombie apocalypse is inevitable. Rising from their graves, clothed in rags, the undead shall walk among the living, hungering for human flesh. Basically, imagine your average lager-lout, but with cannibalistic tendencies.

With this undead invasion imminent, we at Dealspwn have devised a Survival Guide, inspired by our collective hours of zombie-genocide, to ensure your survival. May it become your bible in the dark days to come.

Get a Shotgun

Forget supplies or rescuing your grandmother from the retirement home. Find a shotgun, and fast. It seems in the aftermath of a zombie invasion, shotguns will be scattered around the globe like confetti after a wedding, so finding one shouldn’t be a problem.

In Left 4 Dead, you could even find shotguns in a hospital! Shotguns... in a hospital? Perhaps they'd run out of anesthesia?

Don’t Trust Scientists

If along your travels you happen to encounter a man in a white lab-coat, maybe wearing glasses or sporting an obscure accent, don’t trust him. He’s more than likely responsible for the zombies, and considers them his ‘children’.

Hell, he probably has his daughter, a test subject, trapped in the cellar, and he intends to feed you to his zombie offspring. Remember the creepy virtual girl in Resident Evil? Kids shouldn't be trusted, either!

No Mercy

People die when zombies arrive. This much video-games have taught me. Death and the undead are as entwined as corruption and politics. So if you and your merry band of survivors should fall foul of some zombie hitchhiking, don’t turn back and attempt to help your friend.

Especially if he’s been bitten. Forget sentimentality and compassion. Cock your shotgun and put him out of his misery.

Bulk Up

In Resident Evil 5, Chris Redfield returns from a prolonged absence, during which he seemingly attended several muscle-building seminars and ingested countless gallons of Body Builder milkshake.

So if you are of slender or rotund girth, find an abandoned gym, remove the festering bodies from the machines, and bulk up!

Don't Trust The Military

After wandering alone for however many weeks or months or years, you would be forgiven for greeting the khaki-clad, cold-faced pawns of the military with open arms. Bad idea. When the military is involved in a zombie situation, it usually concerns a purging of sorts. Nukes. Napalm.

And hey, World at War proved some Nazis returned as zombies, so essentially, they’re all the same!

Avoid Shopping-Malls

It may seem like an attractive location, but shopping-malls should always be avoided. If George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead hasn’t convinced you, then Capcom’s Dead Rising should have!

Sure, free meals, toys and an all-access ticket to the carnival zone may seem too good to resist, but once those zombies frothing outside breach the defences, you’re just another fast food joint!

Mansions, Too

Mansions are as dangerous as shopping-malls in the event of a zombie apocalypse, as if some sign, visible only to the undead, is proclaiming a free room and a free meal inside, wrapped in a duvet.

Resident Evil, House of the Dead, both forced their heroes into old, creepy mansions with improbably large and complex layouts, ultimately culminating in some climactic encounter with the zombie Jesus.

Build A Mad-Max Car

On the crowded streets of a post-apocalyptic, zombie-overrun city, a Sedan isn’t going to make it out of the driveway. Raid your kitchens, sheds and garages for sharp or bludgeoning instruments, and retrofit them to your car.

Once it resembles the unholy child of a Peugeot 306 and a hedgehog, you’re equipped to carve through the undead masses like a human snow-plough.

If You're Bitten...

It’s almost inevitable. If zombies are running around, flailing their limbs and biting passersby like Mike Tyson on LSD, then it’s only a matter of time before you are bitten and become a zombie.

If such an event should occur, it’d be wise to shoot yourself. Otherwise, you may find yourself hungering for human flesh and unable to articulate your craving coherently. You might also accidentally murder and eat your friends and family. Left 4 Dead, however, has proven that being the zombie can be pretty fun, too!

Stay Alive!

It’s a genetic imperative to survive. We, as creatures, are hardwired to care, above all, for ourselves. So, reader, remember to wash and brush your teeth, resist eating or drinking any potentially contaminated food or water, exercise regularly, and generally try to avoid those shambling, cannibalistic gentlemen wandering around outside.

Because, let’s be honest, once the zombies have been defeated, their festering corpses removed from the roads and dumped into a landfill, a new world beckons. You could be a hero, or even a king! You might even be the sole survivor, forced to wander the barren wastes alone. Will Smith seemed to enjoy it in I Am Legend.

To Conclude...

As gamers, we’ve amassed hours, days even weeks of zombie-killing practise, and if our obsession with the undead holds true, it’s only a matter of time before some idiotic scientists creates the damned things! So arm your shotguns, prime your grenades, and prepare to face the zombie apocalypse!

Great article. But I think another important point is to make sure you don't get mistook for a zombie and killed by the rescue squad like the guy in Night of the Living Dead. He did everything right. Got the shotgun, showed no sentimentality - he killed the child when she went for him with the gardening tool, avoided the mall and managed to stay alive. Then, when it was all over, he gets shot by the recue squad right between the eyes. That bit has me shouting at my TV every time…

I agree, but think here people. When the zombies come, its gonna be 200- what, 6 billion? but the general public doesnt know what a "zombie" is. Your friend turns into a zombie, you dont recognize. "Hey, dude!" "URRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHH" MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH. this will keep happening. than we got about 3 billion to 2 billion (the other billion jumped off cliffs, comitted suicide, kamakazied, etc.) Then what hapens? we CANT SURVIVE AN APACOLYPSE!!! FACE IT!!! and also, ever heard of running out of ammo? even if a billion do manage to survive, theyre down to crowbars and moldy bread: they wont last long. However, there are some real survivors out there, the people who PREPARED and told theyre KIDS to be prepared; they stocked up on food, ammo, etc. They will be the survivors, somewhere a mile underground, living off the land. THAT is who you wanna be, people! Also, the rescue squads will be military. DONT TRUST THEM